Major Crimes

by Janie Crouch

  “I just need five minutes to line up a few things.” Cain rubbed the back of his neck. “And to pull myself together.” Cain felt like the papers with Mason’s DNA results were burning a hole in his pocket.

  Lawson nodded with understanding. “Sure. This is all pretty difficult to digest.”

  Cain just nodded. It didn’t matter how difficult it was. He had a job to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hayley sat handcuffed to the chair, desperate to try to find a way to contact Cain. He was going to walk into a trap and they were both going to die.

  Mara had delighted in telling Hayley all the “evidence” her colleague was showing Cain right now. They were so clever, printing documents to make it look like Hayley had been the one selling state secrets. Making it look just real enough to be possible.

  Once Cain was presented with this proof, Hayley wouldn’t blame him for believing them. They’d done a damn good job of making it seem like Hayley had strung Cain along just to get access to a computer.

  Mara and whoever else she was working with obviously knew their way around a computer. They were good. Their evidence was nearly flawless. Especially when Cain had never been able to get past his innate mistrust of Hayley to begin with.

  Mara and Company had basically just given Cain a push in the direction his brain and instincts already had wanted to take him anyway.

  “What if he doesn’t buy it?” Hayley asked, hoping beyond all hope it would be true. She didn’t want both of them to die here in this empty set of offices.

  She didn’t want to die here alone, either. But would take that over both of them dying.

  Mara grinned at her, nothing friendly about the expression. “Oh, he bought it. Just got word. Your boyfriend was so distraught it took him twenty minutes to pull himself together, but now he’s on his way. To arrest you.”

  Hayley pulled violently on the handcuffs holding her wrists, wanting desperately to get out of this chair and throw Mara across the room. Mara just laughed.

  Mara read another text. “Joshua says Bennett is in ‘full agent mode.’”

  Of course he was. He wouldn’t let the fact that they had a history, or even that she was the mother of his child, stop him if they’d convinced him she was guilty of treason.

  “You know what I think sealed the deal?” Mara walked closer, still smiling. “I think it was the fake DNA and blood records we showed Bennett of your son. Records that showed the kid and he had no blood relation whatsoever.”

  Hayley kicked out with her leg hoping to catch Mara, but she just stepped back.

  “So it is true! Ha! That was just a lucky guess on my part, thinking the kid might be his, since I couldn’t find any record of you ever dating anyone else, even in the years you were both at different colleges. But I can just imagine handsome Agent Bennett’s face when he found out little Mason wasn’t his.”

  Hayley wilted in the chair, the last of her hope deflating. It wouldn’t have taken much for them to falsify a medical record for Mason. Unless Cain took the time to truly authenticate it—which he clearly hadn’t if he was on his way here—then it would look like Hayley had lied to him about their son.

  Just another lie he thought she told him.

  He probably couldn’t wait to get here to arrest her.

  Hayley just stared out the window at the offices across the street. Even if she could get up and wave her arms they probably wouldn’t notice her. This building was fully empty, but that one had looked pretty deserted, also.

  But trying to figure out a way to get the attention of people who may or may not be across the street was better than sitting here waiting for Cain to arrive and the mistrust between them to sign both of their death warrants.

  When she heard the elevator ding she knew it was too late.

  Mara came to stand right behind Hayley, her gun pointed directly at her temple. Cain would realize he’d been fooled, but he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  The door opened and a young man walked in with Cain right in front of him. She could see shock blanket his features as he took in the situation. When he turned to face the man behind him, the guy had already pulled out his own weapon and had it pointed at Cain.

  The man gestured to Cain’s shoulder holster with his gun. “Take your weapon out, very slowly. Put it on the ground. If you try any daring heroics I’m going to be forced to shoot you and Mara will shoot Hayley.”

  Cain’s eyes narrowed to slits but he did what the other man asked, putting his gun on the ground and sliding it away with his foot.

  “What the hell is going on, Lawson?”

  The man laughed. “Oh sorry, there’s been a change of plans. We don’t really need you here to arrest Hayley. We needed you here so we could make it look like you were going to arrest Hayley and then the two of you killed each other in the process.”

  Hayley watched as realization dawned on Cain’s face.

  “All that stuff you told me at Omega headquarters...”

  “Yeah.” Lawson shook his head ruefully. “False. Ends up your girl is not the only person good with the computer.”

  “You made all of it up?”

  Lawson shrugged. “No. We did what any good con man does. We took elements of the truth and blended them with what we needed them to say.”

  Hayley had never seen Cain look so defeated. It crushed something inside her. She pulled at her handcuffs again. Cain looked over at them.

  “You’re the lady who worked at the Bluewater. You were there the night of the fire,” he said to Mara.

  “We tried to get rid of her that night, but you were too quick. Got her out of the building.”

  Cain took a few steps toward them, his hand held out almost as an apology to Hayley.

  “And the hotel?” he asked. “Someone really was trying to kill Hayley. She didn’t set that up.”

  “Ms. Green has proven exceptionally difficult to kill,” Lawson answered. “Unlike her other hacker cohorts, who we were able to eliminate so easily.”

  Mara pushed at the back of Hayley’s head with her gun. “We thought we had more time with you since you were actually following the rules of your parole and not accessing any computers. FYI, your fellow cocriminals accessed them as soon as they could manage it.”

  Hayley turned her head so she could look at Mara. “So you killed them because you couldn’t figure out which one of us had set that trapdoor inside the CET system.”

  Cain took another few steps toward the window. Maybe he was thinking, like Hayley had, that there was someone across the street he could try to signal. Hayley needed to keep Mara’s and Lawson’s attention on her.

  “We knew it had to be one of the top tier.” Lawson followed Cain, keeping his gun pointed at him. “Some of the hackers weren’t capable of that sort of maneuver. Mara never thought it was you, but I did.” The man leered at her and Hayley couldn’t help but cringe.

  “You accessing a computer came at a very inconvenient time. We’ve made millions in our sales, but our biggest one yet is scheduled for next week,” Mara said. “Normally we would just lie low for a few years, let this all blow over. But that sale is too big.”

  Lawson pushed Cain in the back with his gun. “In the billions with a b not an m. So even though this is going to bring down some definite heat on the situation, we still had to get rid of both of you. Because we know whatever you know, Hayley, you’ve told Agent Bennett here.”

  “You won’t hurt Mason?” Hayley didn’t even want to bring up her son, but if Cain was going to make a move she wanted to give him every opportunity she could.

  Mara tsked at her. “We are not monsters. The baby doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Great.” Cain rolled his eyes. “Criminals with a conscience. What is it you’re going to sell with your billion-dollar sale? Is that going to cos
t any lives?”

  Lawson just shrugged. “You mean plans for the newest stealth drones? Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to come back to cost a few lives. But we’re not actually pulling the trigger on those like we would be with the kid.”

  Cain took another step toward the window.

  “Just in case you’re thinking you might get someone’s attention from the other building, we made sure that was empty, too.” Lawson gave them both a big grin.

  Hayley deflated into her chair. That had been her last hope, that someone across the street would at least see what was going on, even if they couldn’t stop it.

  They were going to die here. Her eyes met Cain’s. There was so much she wanted to say to him. Even to tell him that she understood how he could’ve believed the proof they’d given about her guilt. She would never expect him to trust her when what seemed like cold, hard facts of her guilt were laid out in front of him.

  She wished she could just hold him one last time. Kiss him. But she knew they weren’t going to let her, so she wasn’t even going to ask.

  Maybe she could take out Mara if they unshackled her before killing her. Hayley had no doubt Cain could disarm Lawson. It was Mara’s gun at Hayley’s head that was holding him back.

  Hayley tried to get Cain’s attention without the other two people seeing, to give him some sort of signal to take out the woman. Maybe Hayley would die, but it was better than both of them dying. It was at least a chance.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Mara said to Lawson. “I’m sure the Omega people will be looking for these two soon.”

  Cain walked all the way over to the window to look out. “Is the senator even in on this at all?”

  Both Mara and Lawson laughed. “No. His computers are, but the man himself has nothing to do with it,” Mara scoffed. “Although he gave us the perfect platform, didn’t he?”

  “To be the most vocal opponent of the CET because of the danger of it being hacked? And he really helped us out by making sure all you hackers went to prison so quickly and for so long. Gave us time to figure out who might be onto us.” Lawson walked over and picked up Cain’s gun from near the door.

  Hayley shook her head. “The funny thing is I had just realized that since you’d found the trapdoor I wasn’t going to be able to prove anything. We thought it was the senator himself committing the crimes, but would never be able to prove it unless he made a mistake.”

  Mara reached down and unbuckled one of Hayley’s wrists. “Sorry. We couldn’t take the chance. Although, had we known that, we might’ve given you a few more months to live.”

  “Especially since you’re a fugitive,” Lawson said. “We could’ve just let the law do our dirty work for us.”

  Cain turned from the window as Mara unshackled Hayley’s other wrist. Now both of them kept their weapons pointed directly at Hayley’s and Cain’s heads.

  “So let me make sure I understand this,” Cain said, shoulders drooping more than Hayley had ever seen them. “You almost killed Hayley in the fire, then hacked law enforcement computers to make it look like she violated her parole, put a contract out on her life, which almost got her killed first by Officer Brickman, then again at the hotel. You kidnapped Hayley, then falsified documents again to make me think Hayley was behind all of this. And then you planned to kill us both.”

  Lawson looked over at Mara, chuckling. “Damn, it reads like a grocery list of badassery, doesn’t it?”

  Mara laughed, too. “And don’t forget making billions of dollars selling classified documents. I think that should top the list.”

  Cain glared at her. “I do, too.”

  “And now we’re going to make it look like you two killed each other in an arrest gone wrong.” Mara pushed Hayley over toward the windows. “You both have got to have gunpowder residue on your hands for this to be believable for forensic purposes. We know enough to know that.”

  Hayley tried to catch Cain’s eye as Mara put a gun in her hand. Maybe he could dive to the side or something.

  Anything.

  Finally he looked at her. But instead of trying to communicate, he just winked.

  Winked.

  What the hell?

  “Ready?” Cain said.

  Was he talking to her? Was she ready to shoot him? Ready to run? Dive? What was he saying?

  Even Lawson was looking at him funny.

  “Now,” Cain said.

  The word was barely out of his mouth before the glass of the window shattered and Hayley screamed, covering her face before she felt arms come around her and she fell to the ground.

  Seconds later she peeked up as half a dozen people with guns and full tactical gear stormed into the deserted office. Mara and Lawson were both moaning on the ground, shot but alive.

  Cain was lying over her, his body protecting her with his own, his arms covering her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She realized she was. Except for a few cuts from the glass, she was uninjured.

  “Yes. Wh-what just happened?”

  “Cain, you bastard,” someone on the SWAT team called out from across the room after they made sure it was secure. “You got them to admit to every damn thing. That was unbelievable.”

  Cain sat up and began carefully brushing pieces of glass off her and then himself, ignoring the SWAT team who were now handcuffing Mara and Lawson.

  “How did they get here?” Hayley asked, pointing at the SWAT team, still trying to process what had just happened. “Were you able to signal them in some way? Did the team track your cell phone?”

  But if so, why would he have winked at her just before Mara and Lawson were taken down?

  Cain pulled a tiny earpiece out of his ear and showed it to her. “They’ve been with us the whole time. I was trying to buy them time to get set up and to see what we could get those two—” he gestured toward the criminals, who were now being treated for their gunshot wounds until the ambulance arrived “—to admit. Which, as it turns out, was pretty much everything.”

  Hayley felt like she was in some sort of daze. Couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

  “But he showed you proof that I was selling the secrets.”

  “Yep. Pretty impressive proof, too.”

  “If you believed him, then why would you have SWAT here with you?”

  Cain reached up and picked a small piece of glass out of her hair, then scooted closer so they were almost chest to chest.

  “I never believed for one single second that you were the one committing the treason,” he said, running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “People were dying due to the secrets being sold. I knew you would never do that. It didn’t matter how many printouts showed me otherwise.”

  “But what about the DNA testing with Mason?”

  Cain rolled his eyes. “At that point I was just trying to keep from pummeling Lawson into the ground. I didn’t even so much as read that piece of fiction. Not to mention a certain birthmark that had sealed the truth for me from the first time I saw Mason.”

  “So the time Lawson said you needed to pull yourself together?”

  Cain’s lips brushed against hers. “Time needed to get the team together. I knew this would be our best chance to end this once and for all. You’re safe now. No one will ever be coming after you or Mason.”

  Hayley felt a tear leak out from the corner of her eye. She couldn’t help it.

  “Hey,” he said, catching it with his fingertip. “It all worked out. Don’t cry.”

  She wasn’t crying because of what had happened all around her.

  “You trusted me.” Even when presented with overwhelming evidence of why he shouldn’t. And they were alive because of it.

  He pulled her closer. “You’re worth trusting. And I hope I can convince you I’m worth trusting, too. The past is past. Y
ou and Mason are my future.”

  She launched herself into his arms, trying to find words, but having to settle for clinging to him instead. His arms folded around her, arms she knew would keep her safe, lend her strength, protect her and Mason from anything that would attempt to harm them. She would do the same for Cain.

  She pulled him closer, desperate to feel him against her. Then suddenly the words she needed to say were so clear. Had been since they were teenagers.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He kissed her with a reverence that brought tears back to her eyes.

  “Me, too. Always have,” he murmured. “Always will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  One month later, Hayley stood back before Judge Nicolaides in his Georgia courtroom. Brandon Han, Omega Sector agent and fully licensed attorney, sat at her side as representation.

  Although this time she really shouldn’t need it. She’d already been cleared of the fugitive charges, the correct information placed back in the law enforcement computer system. This was to revisit her parole.

  Cain sat in the row immediately behind Hayley’s table. Ariel had Mason outside in the hall running around.

  “I’m glad to see you back here unharmed,” the judge said from his seat. “And I understand there’s been a change in some of your circumstances? Particularly in your last name?”

  Hayley glanced over at Brandon, who just held out his hand for her to answer. After the last two times she’d gone before a judge, Cain could understand her nervousness.

  “Yes, your honor. My full name is now Hayley Green Bennett.”

  “Did your husband ever tell you about the time he burst into my chambers and almost got himself arrested?”

  Hayley spun around to him before returning to face the judge. “No, Your Honor.”

  “No matter. I forgave him seeing as I was once a big high school football fan.” Judge Nicolaides looked down at the papers on his desk. “Interesting to me that the arresting officer in your original case was also named Cain Bennett.”